Open Letter to the Center for American Progress

“I know what America is… America is a thing you can move very easily, move it in the right direction. They won’t get in [the] way.” –Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, 2001

The Center for American Progress (CAP) has made a mistake.

Benjamin Netanyahu’s entire political career has been focused on demonstrating to Israelis that he could “move [America] very easily”. Having courted Republicans as his natural allies, he has, on three occasions, addressed joint sessions of Congress, using all of them to turn “peace negotiations” into a blank check for ever more expansionist policies of Occupation.

In his speech to Congress in 1996, he called for an end to the “Oslo Accords”. In 2011, he rebuked President Obama’s call for an Israeli-Palestinian peace based on “the 1967 borders, with mutually agreed land swaps”. And just this year, Netanyahu used his appearance to call on Congress to block the Administration’s support for the Iran Deal.

Netanyahu knows that he has created a deep partisan divide in the US over Israeli policies and is attempting to repackage his increasingly far-right agenda as bi-partisan consensus.

As progressive leaders across a broad spectrum of social movements, we are dismayed that CAP will sponsor an address by Netanyahu on November 10th. CAP should not be providing him with this opportunity.

Initiated by the Arab American Institute and Jewish Voice for PeacePress release here.

Signatories:

Organizational Endorsements

American Muslims for PalestineArab American InstitutezAvaazCenter for Constitutional RightsCenter for Media JusticeEpiscopal Peace Fellowship Palestine Israel NetworkFriends of Sabeel North AmericaGrassroots InternationalJadaliyya.orgJews Say No!Network of Arab American ProfessionalsMuslim Foundation of AmericaMuslim Public Affairs CouncilRootsAction.orgPax ChristiUS Campaign to End the Israeli OccupationUS Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (USACBI)Veterans For PeaceWashington Peace Center